Owen Kylie

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Owen
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Kylie
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  • Article
    Scaling the laws of thermal imaging-based whale detection
    (American Meteorological Society, 2020-05-08) Zitterbart, Daniel ; Smith, Heather R. ; Flau, MichaeI ; Richter, Sebastian ; Burkhardt, Elke ; Beland, Joseph ; Bennett, Louise ; Cammareri, Alejandro ; Davis, Andrew ; Holst, Meike ; Lanfredi, Caterina ; Michel, Hanna ; Noad, Michael ; Owen, Kylie ; Pacini, Aude F. ; Boebel, Olaf
    Marine mammals are under growing pressure as anthropogenic use of the ocean increases. Ship strikes of large whales and loud underwater sound sources including air guns for marine geophysical prospecting and naval midfrequency sonar are criticized for their possible negative effects on marine mammals. Competent authorities regularly require the implementation of mitigation measures, including vessel speed reductions or shutdown of acoustic sources if marine mammals are sighted in sensitive areas or in predefined exclusion zones around a vessel. To ensure successful mitigation, reliable at-sea detection of animals is crucial. To date, ship-based marine mammal observers are the most commonly implemented detection method; however, thermal (IR) imaging–based automatic detection systems have been used in recent years. This study evaluates thermal imaging–based automatic whale detection technology for its use across different oceans. The performance of this technology is characterized with respect to environmental conditions, and an automatic detection algorithm for whale blows is presented. The technology can detect whales in polar, temperate, and subtropical ocean regimes over distances of up to several kilometers and outperforms marine mammal observers in the number of whales detected. These results show that thermal imaging technology can be used to assist in providing protection for marine mammals against ship strike and acoustic impact across the world’s oceans.
  • Article
    Natural dimethyl sulfide gradients would lead marine predators to higher prey biomass
    (Nature Research, 2021-02-01) Owen, Kylie ; Saeki, Kentaro ; Warren, Joseph D. ; Bocconcelli, Alessandro ; Wiley, David N. ; Ohira, Shin-Ichi ; Bombosch, Annette ; Toda, Kei ; Zitterbart, Daniel
    Finding prey is essential to survival, with marine predators hypothesised to track chemicals such as dimethyl sulfide (DMS) while foraging. Many predators are attracted to artificially released DMS, and laboratory experiments have shown that zooplankton grazing on phytoplankton accelerates DMS release. However, whether natural DMS concentrations are useful for predators and correlated to areas of high prey biomass remains a fundamental knowledge gap. Here, we used concurrent hydroacoustic surveys and in situ DMS measurements to present evidence that zooplankton biomass is spatially correlated to natural DMS concentration in air and seawater. Using agent simulations, we also show that following gradients of DMS would lead zooplankton predators to areas of higher prey biomass than swimming randomly. Further understanding of the conditions and scales over which these gradients occur, and how they are used by predators, is essential to predicting the impact of future changes in the ocean on predator foraging success.